Year Zero
by Razer Athane
Summary: Alisa wishes she never woke up. -Alisa x Lars, Oneshot-


Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Tekken.

Author's Note: Contribution for Larisa Day. Sorry its a day late. Enjoy!

* * *

**YEAR ZERO**

* * *

When the confinement opens with a rushed hiss, the first thing Alisa notices – when she reboots herself – is that the entire building around her is destroyed. Most walls have been torn down brick by brick, and the Violet Systems command console has been torn apart and has rusted with age. She feels the wind from outside.

She then sees the sky, a burnt orange; the sun is twice the size that she recalls.

Something stirs in her systems, but she cannot identify it at the moment. She feels foggy, like there are things she is forgetting and cannot piece together. So instead, Alisa ejects herself from the pod and inspects it too, finding that it's been partially damaged as well, but fares better than the rest of the 'room.' She sees graffiti towards the top of the capsule.

"Attempting to connect to the Mishima Financial Empire Database," she suddenly blurts to her surprise.

She stands there, like a statue for many minutes – if her damaged internal clock is correct, it is about twenty three of them – before a message pings back, informing her that she cannot connect to it. Another attempt is made – fifteen minutes before a response – but she still cannot connect to it.

Something stirs in her again, causing her to raise her arms and rub her temples, "This doesn't feel right."

Soon enough, she begins to wander, noting how so much of what she once knew had been destroyed. Buildings were broken, hollow and crumbling – pathways were smashed. She wonders what has changed, how and why. She struggles to realise why things feel off for her, and she feels – _frustrated?_ – when concepts don't click.

Alisa sees movement in the distance – a group of humans coming towards her. A smile appears on her face as she runs towards them – information, _information _– she can at least ask where she is, what's happened.

When a bullet lodges itself into her arm, she is left confused. Then she hears them shouting at her, "She's woken up from the capsule! She's like them! Robot, _cyborg – kill_ her! Dismantle her!"

"Threat detected," a part of her says, chainsaws ripping from her forearms.

Another part of her detests, and it is that one that wins out, instead choosing to go far away in the opposite direction with her booster rockets.

It's only when she is a safe distance away from the humans that she realises what feels wrong. There is someone missing – a human male, with blue eyes she soon recalls. She remembers tall buildings, all shining and bright, and running around the world with him to stop something... important and devastating.

Alisa soon decides that she needs to find this man again.

* * *

Humans don't like her, Alisa soon finds out.

Then why is her memory of this human male driving her to go to human camps, just to find him?

They always attack her, forcing her to whiz through the camps and use her facial recognition systems, rather than ask questions. But she never finds him. Not the unusual hair – she hasn't seen a blond one yet – nor the scars arranged in a particular manner. In one scuffle, she lost her head, but it grew back.

Humans seem to fear robots now. She doesn't understand why, because she remembers such strong friendships, and even dedicated servitude. No, she doesn't know what the world has become in her reparative slumber, but she knows it saddens her. It saddens her because she didn't think the world would go that way.

In one instance she attempts to reason with the humans, pointing to the tears forming in her eyes due to a grief she cannot yet identify, "How can I simply be a robot if I express such emotion?"

She nearly lost an arm then, but still, she had managed to escape; but it got her wondering.

Alisa only manages to keep track of time due to her partially functioning internal clock. It has been two months since she woke, though she doesn't know the year, and the landscape is dead. Humans live in isolated camps and thieve from one another. In the entire time, she has not located any others like her – made of metal, functioning on some sort of power.

That is, until now.

A head in the sand. That's all she finds at first. But as she continues to dig, she finds a neck, a half a shoulder. Exhaling, she shakes the item, noting the wires that are broken and hanging, "Hello? Can you hear me?"

There is nothing; but when she tries again, it is that odder voice, the more formal one. She feels something leaving her fingers, going into the head, something that tingles and itches... Electricity, power; and then the head's eyes fling open, a bright red.

"Alisa Bosconovitch," it – he, given the tone of voice – states.

She drops the head in surprise and falls back, eventually gathering the courage – _what machine needs courage?_ – to look at him once more. She gathers breath and nods, "Yes, that's me."

And then there is more jargon from the machine, until finally he introduces himself in things that aren't numerals, "It has been such a long time. I am the last Jack model. Your survival can be classified as a miracle."

"Jack," she begins, the name feeling familiar on her tongue, "Why do the humans hate robots so much?"

"Because we destroyed them," and despite the power in such words, Jack doesn't seem moved one way or the other by them, "Technology became too clever. It understood too much, and it knew what it needed to do to assume control. In some instances, the machines became too humanlike... But they did not predict that humanity could overcome such an uprising.

"Look at the world around you. This is not the world you understood. This is not what Tokyo used to be. Where are the towers? Where are the people? The parks and small temples?" Jack's voice begins to crackle, as though fading out and dying. The light of his eyes begin to dim.

She remembers a warm summer and ice cream near Meiji Jingu with the man she is trying to find. For the first time, she hears the man laugh. It's sweet.

"They fear _any_ robot or cyborg, because they _survived._ And surviving is a dangerous outcome. It changed humanity. It can change us too."

"How long has it been since I fell asleep?" Alisa asks.

When there's no response, she shakes what remains of Jack and repeats the question, her voice becoming more urgent. She tries again and again, but nothing comes up – she wonders why only part of her internal clock had been damaged, when she was supposed to be _fixed_ – and water pricks her eyes.

She gently sets Jack down and covers him with sand again, hiding him from the humans. She doesn't know what to do.

* * *

Before long, she encounters a cyborg. She remembers this one for his distinctive laugh, from before she fell asleep.

Bryan Fury, a former police officer according to the last update in her records – he looks like he hasn't aged a day, so surely not that long has passed. Alisa's asked him about his own internal clock, and he states that he doesn't know the year, like her. That a sense of time has been lost. But he lived through everything, and he and his gang of robots tells her _everything._

She's horrified to realise just how _angry_ humanity is, but also at how _selfish_ the robots were. There are two parts of her that, once hearing Bryan's tale, feel like they're at war. One part says that humans were here first – the other says that robots were a natural evolution, the newest model.

"Is it possible for me to feel sick?" she asks Bryan.

He laughs, that deep, rich and not-quite-right one, "For you and me, yeah. For most others, no."

"What do you mean?"

He never answers her, because the humans have found their camp; so they flee to the next one, only to keep running and running. Always running, never stopping; never attempting to reason, or apologise, or even fight back. Alisa knows she could crush them – but she questions why everyone else runs. Especially given what she remembers of Bryan, he who cared not.

Perhaps the desire to survive drove him – drove them all – to a different approach.

She inquires about the man. He says that all he remembers was that he was a good human, who saw the value in humanity and robot kind. But he doesn't know where he is or what happened to him, only that he would still visit her every so often while she slept.

"Do you remember a name? Please tell me you remember a name, or where I could locate him!"

Nothing.

One day they come across the remains of gravestones. Crumpled, broken. Alisa remembers these and what they signified, and she feels sad that even the dead could not escape the problems of the past and the present.

To her frustration, though, she watches as Bryan and the others continue to break what remains of the stones. He crushes an angel wing beneath his boot as though it is nothing, "Don't do that."

Bryan laughs.

"Don't do that," she says again, a little firmer and with clenched fists, "It is disrespectful to everyone."

"And what _respect_ did the humans give us when we served under them? When we let them control us?" Bryan spits, surging forward. One of his eyes flickers, but the other remains trained on her, "They _used us_, Alisa. Robot, or cyborg; completely mechanical, _or half human _like you and me_._ We were nothing, but _they_ are the ones who are _nothing!_ And we will watch as they die beneath the sun!"

She doesn't miss the 'half human' or 'you and me', but instead questions, "You are dishonouring those who fell on both sides. Were you not once a man of honour?"

Bryan takes a swing at her, but she blocks it with reflexes that still surprise her. He grabs her forearm and begins to crush the metal, but she manages to detach it and grow another. She quickly deduces that she doesn't have that many spare body parts left in reserve.

Alisa spits, "I am leaving. I am happier and safer on my own."

She never sees Bryan or his gang again.

* * *

She takes to going through human settlements once more, asking about a blond man. They still chase her out.

Most children scream when they see her, but there is a boy who mumbles something almost undetectable until he is dragged away and out of the fighting. As though he is answering her question.

Alisa is now at near some ruins, sitting on half a step and playing the audio file over and over again, trying to decipher it. She turns up the volume, she tries to ignore the white noise; the child's voice is not afraid, but it is a sentence. Bit by bit, the more she listens, the words become clear; and then she smiles, quietly thanking the boy for her help.

"_Look to the past."_

Yes, history holds many answers; she has travelled far from her original point, and she feels tired.

She decides to go through the ruins behind her and rummage through this area, which looked to be the remains of a small town. She sees broken toys, destroyed furniture – walls and most materials were eaten away by the sandstorms, and by time. She lifts up what remains of a sofa and finds a small book.

"Analysing contents," she suddenly says; Alisa at least now remembers why she distinctly feels like she's two people, thanks to Bryan.

She wonders who she would've fought for if she was awake back then. What remains of her humanity shouts humans – her systems screams machines.

"Diary," she confirms.

And when Alisa reads the last page, where the ink is still rather strong and unfazed by time, she really does throw up transmission fluid and oil. Shock settles deep into her system. Tears cling to her cheeks, and Alisa wishes she never woke up.

* * *

It's been a thousand years.

The date on the journal's shown her it's been a thousand years since she went to sleep.

But Bryan didn't look like he'd aged; then again, neither did she.

She knows now that the man she is looking for will not be around. Instead, she spends the remainder of her time trying to reboot that final part of her memory, trying to recall who he is. Travelling from ruins to ruins, hoping to find a piece of the past, of anything.

She sees him laugh and smile from a thousand years ago; they fight soldiers and work their way through to another man, who she remembers – Jin Kazama, her former master. She wonders what happened to him, what happened to them all. Given the amount of time that's passed, she now knows why she can't see the final part of the date nor connect to the database; there is no _year_ anymore, and there's no database.

Year zero, the start of something supposedly new; but for how long?

Alisa soon starts to hear his voice. When she looks up, she sees humans running towards her, but she can't hear their footsteps, or war cries. She only hears the man telling her that she means a lot to him. The feel of his hands as he cradles her face and stares into her very systems – soul – everything.

She feels a tear trace down the path of his fingertips, from all that time ago.

And then the name finally sinks in, just as humanity descends upon her.

Alisa lets them tear her apart in the hopes of being with him again.

_Lars Alexandersson._


End file.
